Absolution
by Kelly123
Summary: guilt is a nasty little creature...ONESHOT


Absolution

Okay, so the basis of this story is a spoiler. So, if you don't want to hear said spoiler then stop reading right about... now. Good? Alright, the spoiler is that someone in Degrassi will die this season. Yadda, yadda, I'm sure you've all heard it already. Here is my version of who that will be, and the effect that their death has on a certain someone.

Not mine.Well, the writing is, but the character's aren't. You get it.

Enjoy!

* * *

He knew that I forgave him, didn't he?

I mean, before all of...this happened, he knew I didn't hold it against him, right?

Please don't think me selfish for being so consumed with such a petty thing when your whole word has just been sucked out from beneath your feet, but it's just...

It's just I can't sleep. I was asleep when you called to tell me what happened that night. When you called to tell me that he hadn't pulled through. You were crying so hard, and your breathing was so erratic, that I couldn't quite make out just what you were saying. Add that to the fact that I was still half out of it, and you ended up having to repeat yourself a few times before what you were trying to tell me could really sink in.

It makes me sick to relieve that conversation, literally nauseous to picture you standing by yourself in the hospital corridor, falling to pieces with every word you gave utterance, while I lie comfortably in my bed rubbing my eyes and wishing you hadn't interrupted my slumber.

But I haven't slept since. I know that doesn't mean anything to you, and I know nothing I could do could even begin to make up for what happened, but I haven't. I've tried to, at least for the first two nights after your call, but it was useless. I would close my eyes for about one minute before I wrenched them open once more, searching frantically in the dark for my cell phone on the night table, certain that I had heard it begin to ring. It never did, of course, but I couldn't take that chance again. I couldn't bear to be asleep if you, or anyone else really, called. I don't know what they could possibly be calling to tell me, what information I so desperately couldn't miss, but I don't care. I know I can't ever make it up to him by depriving myself of sleep, but I don't care. Now, more than ever, I just don't fucking care.

Tomorrow is his funeral, and I am not even going to attempt sleep. What's the point anyway, my mind is racing and my heart is throbbing, and that damn cell phone is clutched so tightly in my hand that my knuckles are white. I turned out my bedroom lights to fool my parents, but regardless I like it here in the darkness by myself.

It's hard to see the yearbook photograph's by the dim of the moonlight, but it's not like there is much to see at any rate. He's hardly in any of them, especially where the most recent grades are concerned. Within the cover of last year's edition I find him smiling awkwardly up from the page, surrounded by all the other grade eleven's in their individual portraits, but otherwise he isn't featured in a single candid. I have more luck in an older edition, where the four of them grin shamelessly at the camera as they stand huddled together in front of their lockers. I almost smile at the memory, because this is the way that I want to remember him, totally goofy and completely unapologetic about it. But then something deep in the pit of my stomach hardens, and stops the corners of my mouth from turning up.

I turn the page to see a younger version of you gazing back up at me, bad haircut, over plucked eyebrows and all. Your arms are wrapped around Teri's shoulders, and she is beaming and your mouth is open, frozen forever in a muted exclamation. Except that this time it isn't silent, and as I stare your voice begins to reverberate in my ears. It's a horrible tone, broken and raw and completely inappropriate for the joyful face it is emanating from. It grows louder and louder until I can hear your words perfectly, and the statement is painfully familiar.

"He's dead Jimmy. Oh no, oh God, oh please no God, he can't! He can't be! Toby is gone Jimmy, my brother is dead. He's-"

I snap the book shut abruptly and cut your cries short. I drop it immediately to the ground and flip open my cell, once again certain that you have called. Called to tell me that this is all a mistake and Toby is alive and it wasn't him who got caught in the crossfire with that school rivalry, and that everything is going to be okay so I should just go back to sleep.

But you haven't and it wasn't and he isn't and it won't and I can't.

I want to cry but I can't. I feel the lump forming in my throat and the tears pricking at my eyes, but I know that they won't fall. I know this, and I hate myself for it, for being so ridiculous and self-centered. I bawled my fucking eyes out when I they told me I could possibly be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, cried bitterly for everything that had been ripped away from me. But I was still alive. Now Toby isn't.

They all put on a sad faces and said what a loss it was when I got shot, how I had such a bright future ahead of me and what a shame that it had been thwarted in the blink on an eye. Back then I agreed with them, secretly pitied myself just like they did, but now that sort of thinking makes me furious. Because the both of us know who really experienced a loss, who truly had a future of endless possibilities ahead of him that were snatched away mercilessly. Honestly, what was I going to do with athletics anyway? Get a scholarship to school in the states, play some mediocre ball, and catch a dictionary of social diseases just to end up back here teaching social studies and coaching high school girls? Fuck, I'm halfway there already and I can't even take a piss standing up by myself.

But Toby, Jesus, Toby was destined for great things once he got the hell out of this town. He would go to an amazing college, then to an amazing graduate school, then have an amazing career and do amazing things. He would have, but now he can't.

Ever.

The funeral tomorrow scares the shit out of me. I'm terrified because I'm not sure that I should even be there, that Toby would even want me there. Do I deserve it? Do you think I should go? I mean, I know I haven't really been there for you in the way a boyfriend should since...it. But I just don't know how Ash, I don't know what I should do, and what I shouldn't. Do I need to stand by your side and be strong for you tomorrow? Or will you think me heartless if I can't manage to cry even then?

I don't know how to even begin to deal with this Ashley, I really don't.

Because all I can think about, whenever I see his picture, or hear his name, or close my eyes, or take a breath, I show horribly I treated him. How all he was trying to do was help me, whether that be by telling me you wanted to break up, or hacking in to the school to change my grades, or whatever, but I could just never appreciate him. All I saw was this dorky little kid, and I was too damn arrogant to do anything but give him hell for it.

Jesus, what changed? When you and I were first dating I got along great with him. Then we broke up and I felt the need to shun him. Along with everyone else, it seems. Sure, we were as different as night and day, but that doesn't give me any excuse to treat him the way I did. It was one fucking concert, for an artist I can't even stand anymore, for Christ's sake, nothing gives me that excuse. Not even the fact that he befriended the man who put me in a wheelchair, because hell, I was getting pretty chummy with Rick before the shooting myself.

All Toby ever wanted was to just be my friend, so why couldn't I have just given him a chance?

So I'm sitting here tonight, just like last night and the night before, sitting here scared to death and hating myself and wondering. Wondering if he died still wanting to be my friend, but thinking that I hated him.

Because I didn't Ash, please you have to believe me. I never hated Toby. Even when I acted like a toddler and treated him as if I did.

He was so smart, God, he was a fucking genius, he had to know that, right?

He knew that, Ash...didn't he?

* * *

Yeah, so I'm thinking that Toby will be the one killed off, because the hardly give him a full sentence of dialogue per season anymore. I mean, the poor kid isn't even on the opening credits! Jesus...but this isn't a crellie, so that's a stretch for me and I like to hear what you thought about this. Should I just stick to my old familiar coupling, or what? 


End file.
